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Why not hand an average paper to a willing co-worker, and ask
them to read it aloud, at a relaxed, conversational pace?
Without knowing the reading speed of your "typical audience",
and assuming they have to actually learn something, and not
skim over it, it's hard to say what a good multiplier might
be.
Also, we don't know how ... er.... self-evident the included
diagrams might be.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gabrielle Kirsch
> Sent: Friday, September 02, 2011 1:10 PM
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: Words per minute - reading?
>
> Hello smart Tech-wrlers
>
> I'm creating a learning path for internal training. It includes a bunch
> of white papers, some recorded demos, and some WBTs. For each piece, I
> need to include the approximate "time to complete". This is easy for
> recordings, but I also need to estimate it for printed materials.
>
> How many words per minute do you think I should use for my estimates?
> These are technical materials for a technical audience (but mostly
> overviews, so they aren't too dense). A typical white paper has about
> 4500 words (and some diagrams).
>
> Thanks.
>
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